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The GOP is the victim (willing or unwilling) of collobrative efforts by the dems and the media far too often.

~~The GOP~~ America is the victim of the propaganda campaign, ongoing since memory of living man runneth not to the contrary, to the effect that journalism is objective. Journalism has never been objective and, ironically, is least able to approach objectivity when it is most able to project the image of objectivity.
Note, when I say "journalism" there is a planted axiom in the construct - the idea that journalism is monolithic. That is, journalism has many facades but a single voice. The unity of journalism is the membership of the wire services, especially the Associated Press. The Associated Press was held by SCOTUS to be in violation of the Sherman AntiTrust Act back in 1945. And no wonder; the wire services homogenize journalism by claiming that journalists are objective in order to maximize the value of the wire service feed to its membership - and if all journalists are objective, they must share the perspective which journalism as a whole projects.
The rules of journalism - "Man Bites Dog, not Dog Bites Man," "If it bleeds, it leads," and "There's nothing more worthless than yesterday's newspaper, (i.e., make your deadline)" are all rules, not of objectivity but of entertainment value. They are rules for making your newspaper profitable. IOW, the rules of journalism promote the self-interest of journalism. And the very last word which would actually describe someone who confuses their own selfish interest with objectivity is, well, "objective."
So we have a highly tendentious and self-interested journalism, falsely but effectively projecting an image of objectivity and public spiritedness. What would you expect politicians to do in that environment? You would certainly expect that a lot of politicians would go along to get along with that prevailing propaganda wind. And you would expect that journalism would award positive labels to such politicians - and would apply negative labels to their opponents:

Moderation being a classical virtue, you might not be surprised to learn, for example, that journalism-favored politicians might be called "moderate" or "centrist" - and disfavored politicians might be called "out of the mainstream," "right wing," "extreme," or even "right wing extremist."

"Liberty" being the watchword of the American founding generation, you might expect that journalist-favored politicians might be called "liberal" - and disfavored politicians would not be so designated.

The possibility of progress being a defining characteristic of the Enlightenment (and the Constitution being a quintessential Enlightenment project), you might expect journalism-favored politicians to be called "progressive" - and disfavored politicians to be called "conservative."
. . . and you would be entirely correct.
The problem is not journalists selling out to socialists - the problem is that, in the wire service milieu, self-selected journalists are socialists.
The Associated Press was instituted in the middle of the Nineteenth Century, early in the era of electronic communication, and its natural function was to economize on telegraphy bandwidth by sharing the same feed over many newspapers. In the Internet era, that mission is obsolete. I should not wonder if Free Republic alone had more bandwidth capability now than the AP did in 1945. So what was "too big to fail" in 1945 should be vulnerable to serious antitrust challenge in 2011.